The new protective shell over the damaged Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Chernobyl is starting to take shape. But, it’s not meant as a final solution for the site and financing for the project remains uncertain.

Several hundred builders are working on a crowded construction site, day and night. The workers come from all around the world: Ukraine, Turkey, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Philippines and Azerbaijan. At first glance, things here don’t look much different from at any other building site. But, if you look closer, you then see the radiation gauges that everyone wears around their necks, and the world-famous silhouette of Chernobyl’s covered former nuclear reactor.

The construction of the New Safe Confinement (NSC), a protective cover, or sarcophagus, over the radioactive ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, looks deceptively routine. In reality, things could become life-threatening here at any time. Just in case, everyone here has a breathing mask.

An accident in February this year near the site showed the extent of the risk of radioactive contamination. Only about 100 meters away from the building site, masses of snow caused a 600-square-metre section of a roof in a machinery hall to cave in.

Subscribe

About

The Atomic Age is an ongoing project that aims to cultivate critical and reflective intervention regarding nuclear power and weapons. We provide daily news updates on the issues of nuclear energy and weapons, primarily though not exclusively in English and Japanese via RSS, Twitter, and Facebook. If you would like to receive updates in English only, subscribe to this RSS.

Choose Language / 言語

Additional Notes / 謝辞

The artwork in the header, titled "JAPAN:Nuclear Power Plant," is copyright artist Tomiyama Taeko.

The photograph in the sidebar, of a nuclear power plant in Byron, Illinois, is copyright photographer Joseph Pobereskin (http://pobereskin.com/)

This website was designed by the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago, and is administered by Masaki Matsumoto, Graduate Student in the Masters of Arts Program for the Social Sciences, the University of Chicago.

Contact / 連絡先

If you have any questions, please contact the Center for East Asian Studies, the University of Chicago at 773-702-2715 or japanatchicago@uchicago.edu.